Silk and Iron
by Stranger
Summary: After graduation, Alicia gets a surprise in her apartment and stays at the Burrow to “restore her piece of mind”. *NEW CHAPTER UPLOADED* F/F
1. sum

Title: Silk and Iron  
  
Author: Stranger  
  
Summary: After graduation, Alicia gets a surprise in her apartment and stays at the Burrow to "restore her piece of mind".  
  
Contains: F/F slash, a bit of nonconsensual action.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story except the plot.  
  
Timeline: It's a bit after "Tip of the Iceberg" and "Something Wicked".  
  
Alicia needed a diversion from her life.  
  
It was Tuesday, the day of Thanksgiving Eve (according to a cheery letter from Katie Bell in America) and her little apartment was totally devoid of any life but her.  
  
Katie Bell, a friend from Hogwarts and fellow Quidditch player whom Alicia was deeply enamored of, had sent Alicia a flurry of letters describing the festivities of the holiday, but other than that, there was nothing in the room that would cheer her up.  
  
She could go look through her Hogwart's album. (The Weasley twins were always up to some mischief in their pictorial worlds.) She could reread the newspaper, latest headline being, "Gringott's Goblin Arrested for Sex Offense".  
  
Or she could sleep.  
  
However, fifty minutes later, Alicia decided sleep was not a viable option.  
  
There was simply nothing to be done, and Alicia was not in the mood to vegetate. She was a woman of action, she would think of-  
  
And that was when Angelina Johnson staggered into the apartment.  
  
***  
  
Angelina Johnson, best friend of Alicia Spinnet since their Hogwarts years and current roommate, was squiffed. As in totally drunk.  
  
Alicia never had been drunk, but had experienced enough of the Weasley's post-kitchen-raid parties to know when squiffed was squiffed.  
  
"Hello, Alicia. Ish that a pocket in your banana?" Angelina slurred, beaming.  
  
"God, 'Lina, you're stinking drunk!" Exclaimed Alicia, "And I mean stinking." She added, catching a whiff of Angelina's breath.  
  
"Yesh, sir." Angelina, attempting to salute her, had tripped over the leg of a chair.  
  
Alicia sighed. "Come on. We can't have you mucking around in this state-I just cleaned the carpet yesterday. Get into the bathroom."  
  
Angelina slowly followed, haphazardly navigating the path to the bathroom.  
  
Upon entering, Alicia filled the sink with very cold water and proceeded to submerge Angelina's head in it.  
  
But Angelina was no more sober after ten submergences than after the first dunking.  
  
"Goddamnit, Angelina, not the firewhiskey." Alicia groaned. Firewhiskey was notorious for two things: burning on the way down, and continuing to inflame the drinker's sense long after drinking, rendering any method of sobering someone useless.  
  
Alicia didn't like the idea of being in the apartment with a drunken Angelina. She was well known for doing things she regretted later (or maybe not, you never could tell with Angelina) when drunk.  
  
"Well," Alicia reflected, "I could lock her in the bathroom for the next twenty-four hours."  
  
But Alicia's thoughts were interrupted by a pair of wet lips and the stench of firewhiskey.  
  
  
  
Stranger Says: Please review. I would appreciate it greatly and it would definitely help mold the story's future. Thank you. 


	2. es

Title: Silk and Iron  
  
Author: Stranger  
  
Contains: F/F slash, a bit of nonconsensual action. Language.  
  
Disclaimer: The spell is mine, and means, "Sleep for a rather long while." Everything else, except for the plot, belongs to the lovely JKR.  
  
1 Part: II  
  
For a moment, Alicia stood frozen, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.  
  
Then she started to struggle. This wasn't a "don't tickle me Elmo" wriggle, but a "get the fuck off me you bloody psycho" full bodied thrashing. Arms and legs flailed in a desperate attempt to push the drunken woman off.  
  
Angelina never stopped her attack for a moment. Her arms wrapped around Alicia in a crushing embrace.  
  
Alicia, frantically thinking, tried throwing Angelina off, but to no avail. An idea struck her and she opened her mouth and very carefully, sunk her teeth into Angelina's lip. Hard.  
  
Immediately, a howling Angelina backed off, blood blossoming from her lower lip. A dark hand raised and caught Alicia's face, and she tumbled backward.  
  
"You little bitch." Angelina hissed, and advanced toward her.  
  
Alicia jumped to her feet and made for the door. Angelina grabbed her with a surprisingly (given the conditions) strong arm. Turning around, Alicia kicked her bleeding assailant in the stomach. Then, after she gathered her wand and her purse, Alicia fled.  
  
***  
  
"Let me get this straight." George Weasley said calmly. "Angelina walks into the apartment, drunk, tries to kiss you--"  
  
"Tries!" Alicia shrieked. "She bloody near smothered me!"  
  
George silenced her with a stern look, then continued, "Angelina kisses you, you bite her and kick her and run over here. Am I correct?"  
  
"Well, I wouldn't have put it that way, but I guess so..." Alicia said. "But she was trying to suffocate me! She was crazy!"  
  
"Ah, but think of it in Angelina's perspective." Said Fred, passing a cup of tea to Alicia.  
  
"You want me to think like a goddamn basket case?" She lost her temper again. Alicia screeched, upsetting the tea cup.  
  
After returning the cup to its "full of tea and unbroken" state, Fred and George exchanged a long look.  
  
"Alicia..." Fred began.  
  
"We can't reason with you if you're so..."  
  
"Flustered, so..."  
  
The twins whipped out their wands and shouted, "Dormi duitius!"  
  
Alicia immediately fell into a deep sleep.  
  
  
  
Read and review. Please. 


	3. est

*  
  
Silk and Iron Part 3  
  
*  
  
Alicia woke, not knowing how much time had passed. The couch was comfortable, and the air was fragrant and warm with the smell of coffee and baking bread. Reveling in the harmony surrounding her, so unlike the events of yesterday, she remained where she was, eyes closed.  
  
"Oh, come on, Angelina wasn't thinking straight--"  
  
"Evidently not." A snigger.  
  
"Grow up!" It was George. "Angelina forced herself on Alicia, and now we've got to deal with this--"  
  
"Right. Fred and George Weasley, counselors to distressed witches all over northern Europe, at your service." Fred laughed again.  
  
"Fred..."  
  
"All right! All right. But we can't play babysitter for too long. As in, by the end of the day, she should be somewhere else. We either send her back from whence she came..."  
  
"Fred..."  
  
"Or..." Fred was silent a moment. "We send her to the Burrow. Fresh country living and a ton of kids flocking around her will do a world of good," he paused again, "Or it'll send her to St. Mungo's."  
  
"Fred, as much as your humor is ill placed, I like that idea. No, not Alicia in a straight jacket--Although that does present some rather pleasant possibilities... Stop laughing, Fred. I mean sending her to the Burrow. Let's owl Mum now."  
  
Alicia peeped from her reclining position. The twins were sitting near the window, hurriedly composing a note to their mother. Every so often, Fred would correct little mistakes on the note, and George would huff.  
  
After completing the note, they tied it to the leg of a tawny owl and released it into the chilled air. Completing that task, they turned their attentions to Alicia.  
  
"Come on, Sleeping Beauty," George grinned, leaning over her. "The world is waiting."  
  
Alicia pretended to awake. "'Lo George, Fred." She faked a yawn.  
  
"Up, up!" Fred urged. "The bread's burning!"  
  
***  
  
That night, Alicia arrived at the Burrow by Floo Powder, a means of transportation that she had never gotten used to. The Burrow was similar to the twins' apartment, only more homely and less like a bachelor's pad. Pictures of red-haired people motioned to the fire, at Alicia.  
  
Steps hurried into the living room, and Alicia found herself face to face with a redhaired woman, presumably the twins' mother.  
  
"Hello, dear." The woman chirped. "I'm Molly Weasley, and you must be Alicia?"  
  
After Alicia nodded, the woman grabbed her arm and led her into the kitchen, thick with the smell of dinner cooking. Three more redheads, one balding, were seated around the table, curiously inspecting a flashlight.  
  
Alicia almost supressed a giggle as the balding man and two sons poked a button, turning the flashlight on, and jumped with surprise. The redheads looked up.  
  
"This is Alicia Spinnet, and she's coming to stay with us for a little while... why don't you introduce yourself." Molly waved the frying pan in a vaguely threatening way.  
  
"Arthur Weasley." The balding man stuck out his hand and she shook it.  
  
"I'm Bill Weasley."  
  
"Charley Weasley, nice to meet you." He tilted his head to one side, thinking. "I remember you from school. First year? Took twelve minutes to figure out which house you'd be sorted? By the time the hat'd decided, you'd fallen--"  
  
"Yes." Alicia said, swiftly cutting off his narrative. She didn't care to remember her first night at Hogwarts, falling asleep during the sorting, WHILE getting sorted, no less, was not something she wanted everyone to know about.  
  
One by one, the other Weasleys trooped in from their various activities, all except for Ginny, who was still at Hogwarts. Percy, who hadn't moved out of the Burrow yet, Ron, looking her over with an expression of immense curiousity, and Harry, who evidently was residing with the Weasleys for now. She greeted all of them and the dinner commenced.  
  
***  
  
Two hours later, long after dinner and a speech on the density of broom handles (courtesy of Percy), Alicia was led up to bed by a smiling, if rather dazed Molly Weasley. (Ron hadn't been the only one to sleep through the lecture.)  
  
"You'll be in Fred and George's room for now, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, swinging the door (covered in "Stay out!" and "Keep away!" signs) open.  
  
The room was everything a room inhabited by George and Fred should be- cluttered, dangerous, filled to the roof with experiments, papers, other things Alicia didn't want to dwell on.  
  
"I've tried cleaning it, but the boys have charmed it so nothing leaves the room," Molly Weasley sighed and scooted around a pile of tubes containing various amber liquids. "I would've placed you in Ginny's room, but it's even worse, and it doesn't have any charms on it."  
  
Alicia smiled. "Thanks, Mrs. Weasley."  
  
She waited until the woman closed the door, still sighing over the disaster area masquerading as a room, then began searching the room. The twins weren't here to stop her and she'd suffered her share of Weasley Robe Raid, so it was her turn.  
  
Thirty minutes later, after skimming through a pile of maps of the Hogwarts' sewer system (which was, for the most part, inaccurate-Hogwarts was a constantly changing building, after all), she found what she'd been looking for.  
  
It was a folder, covered in a months of dust. Once it had been a brilliant blue, but now, the folder was reduced the grimy gray of a mold encrusted boulder. "Private Weasley Files" it read. And, of course, she opened it.  
  
Immediately, two things happened. What felt like a tiny jolt of lightning hit Alicia, and an alarm went off in the Weasley twins' apartment.  
  
George switched the alarm off with the flick of a finger, and turned to Fred. "Brother dear," he called, grinning evilly, "the maiden has begun her thorough inspection of our most clandestine files."  
  
Alicia, having thrown herself to the other side of the room when the mini storm occurred, now cautiously returned to the papers. As nothing else threatened to attack her, she bent over the file and began to read:  
  
Possible Couples of Hogwarts School, Fred and George Weasley, Seventh Years, Gryffindor  
  
Alicia glanced at the title again. She knew the twins had forged a name for getting into other people's business, but matchmaking? She grimaced and continued.  
  
Hermione Granger (6th), Ron Weasley (6th): A continual friendship which might blossom into more, if the two gits wouldn't be so thick.  
  
Alicia sighed. In even writing, the twins left nothing sacred. This was proved as she shuffled through possible courtships-everything from Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy (she actually laughed until her eyes started watering) to Colin Creevey and Albus Dumbledore.  
  
When she came to it, her eyes narrowed. It was at the last page, penciled in and fading from age. Three little words that made her heart stop and teeth grit. For written in the careless scrawl of a Weasley twin were the three words Alicia had hoped for, pleaded and ached and any other word that entailed desperate thoughts, mental anguish and a sense of terrible loss, that it would never be.  
  
Under all the other couples, ranging from probable to laughable to impossible where three words, another couple, that had driven Alicia to an unsurmountable level of distractoin in her seventh year.  
  
Alicia and Katie.  
  
  
  
Review! Please! 


	4. sumus

Silk and Iron  
  
*  
  
Thank you's: Kimagure, my first reviewer, DeceptionZX2, "Lovely Story", "Arctic_Aurora_Dragon" and "Terry Lofton".  
  
Etymology: Arion is a horse (created by Poseidon) who was black, incredibly fast and could fly. For simplicity sake, Arion is Angelina's owl.  
  
*  
  
The days at the Burrow flew by with one thing and another. Arthur Weasley immersed himself in a rather sticky Muggles relations situation involving some spine growing shoes and a nasty biting glove. Percy received an anonymous parcel, containing a bouncing rubber mouse that sprayed Percy with toad liver juice the first time he touched it. (Consequently Percy had spent five hours in the bath after and Mrs. Weasley had sent a howler to the twins. "They might not live in my house, but they're still my sons...")  
  
Alicia was becoming used to the blissfully hectic world of the Weasleys. Every day she woke up to the sound of Percy charging down the stairs, get dressed and stumble down to the kitchen, already filled with the aroma of breakfast. Alicia even had an exclusive seat at the Weasley table-as the honorary Ginny.  
  
Life here was so much more peaceful and enjoyable than any time she had ever spent with her parents, barring the relatively calm days of her childhood. Her mother, a nurse at St. Mungo's, was very high strung (longtime exposure to the patients had snapped her nerves) and would constantly break into hysterics. Her father was a half and half, a devout Christian and still forced Alicia to attend church on Sundays and participate in all the other Muggle activities her pureblood friends scoffed at. On the whole, the household Alicia had grown up in was just a place for three people who happened to be related to sleep, eat and fight.  
  
By day, Alicia devoted her time at the Burrow to playing Quidditch with Harry, Ron, and Charlie, cooking with Mrs. Weasley, and helped Mr. Weasley with the family bookkeeping. It was a tumultuous paradise, a perfect life.  
  
But by night, Alicia sat in the twins' room, thinking. What was she going to do after the Weasley's decided she was a burden to them? Go to her parents' home? Go back to the apartment? What was Angelina doing now?  
  
She found soon enough. At a breakfast of omelets (Alicia hated eggs but didn't complain), she received a scarlet letter from a black feathered owl-Angelina's owl, Arion.  
  
"Oh shit," She thought, grabbing the Howler.  
  
Two things happened at that instant: the Howler opened in her hands, Angelina began screaming, and Mrs. Weasley cast a very well timed silencing spell around Alicia and the noisy envelope.  
  
"You stupid bitch!" Angelina's voice shrieked. "You-"  
  
The Weasleys were spared the rest of the tirade; Alicia was not. It went on and on, catolouging her various problems, ranging from the physical to the mental to her sexual activities (some of which were physically impossible), then onto what Angelina would do if she got her hands on Alicia.  
  
Inside the cone of silence, Alicia remained calm. This was nothing she hadn't heard before. Or so she thought. Angelina's voice suddenly paused, became calm and coldly began hurling acrimonious ephitets at Alicia. It hurt so much more than any of the vulgarities-being told she was a coward and not much better than a disease and certainly not a friend.  
  
"Calm down, Alicia," she tried to tell herself. "It was HER who attacked you, not the other way around."  
  
But if she was right, why did those words-"I should've known you'd just be some filthy leech"-hurt so much?  
  
The Weasleys stared. Howlers not uncommon in their household (mostly due to the twins' mischief), but no one, save Ginny, reacted this way. Alicia was frozen in place, eyes wide, pale and evidently struggling to keep from crying.  
  
Finally, the enveloped puffed into smoke and Alicia snapped out of her repose. She inhaled sharply and hurried out of the kitchen.  
  
Ron turned to his mother, about to ask some callous question like, "What's wrong with her?"  
  
Molly Weasley spoke before her son even opened his mouth. "You will leave her alone. No mucking about, got it? And I also want you to trim the hedges."  
  
Ron grumbled and left the table.  
  
***  
  
For the rest of the day, Alicia remained in her (or the twins') room.  
  
The Weasleys' respected her privacy and no one mentioned her until right before dinner, when Arthur asked Molly if their guest might want some food.  
  
"Good idea, dear," Molly said and headed up to the twins' room.  
  
Alicia's head jerked up when she heard the knocking at her door, which swung open, letting in Molly Weasley.  
  
"Hello dear," the matron said warmly. "Do you feel hungry?"  
  
She stared a moment before bursting into tears.  
  
Molly sat down next to Alicia and patted her on the back. "Come now, it's not that bad. I'm sure we've all said things we don't mean." Pat, pat, pat.  
  
Alicia sniffed.  
  
"Why don't you come down to dinner? I've got a nice pot roast." wheedled the red-headed woman.  
  
Alicia nodded slightly and wiped away the fresh tears with the back of her hand.  
  
"Oh. the twins sent something over. Said you might need it." Mrs. Weasley dashed down the stairs and presently returned holding a huge, lumpy package.  
  
Curious, Alicia pulled off the twine and ripped away the brown paper.  
  
The twins, no doubt having only the best intentions, had sent her some of Katie's clothing. She recognized the navy shirt, the dragon hide jacket.  
  
Mrs. Weasley sighed, staring at the young woman, currently beating herself and various parts of the furniture with "Canadian Wizards: A Dying Breed". Ginny was never like this.  
  
"Maybe," she thought, "the hysteria will come later."  
  
She hoped not.  
  
AN: A wee note. Alicia isn't Canadian. Just thought you'd like to know. 


End file.
